Life a shell
Of what it wants to be
It's too late now
It's gone, I can't see.

Sand is slippery like that
Through a tremor
Of an hourglass
Through a trigger
Of a memory, passed

Repeat on cue:
One more day
Then after two
I can't stay

I drew a portrait
of my memories:
dark blue and green
in purity. They are humming bold
circles swirling.
Red cores singing of
a fresh imagine.

Then,
Suddenly,
Just there,
the gray seaweed of time extends.
stabbing circles,
now the gruesome gray
intertwining twang of time
twisting itself into my memory.  

I asked him, "What does this mean to you?"
He said, "It is just a pretty pattern."

I have your
Finger prints memorized
In case you burn them off
Or commercialize
Your hazy gazing
Killing me one look at a time
So I shake off all the titles
Like coils of a snake
And take
More than I need
How can I explain
The main
Vein of slack
Golden and black?

Wall of pillows
Brick embroidery
Carries a simple bloom
Plume of smoke
Through a crack in the cement
City streets salty
With tears and sweat
Wet with ice
Slip, slice
**** and dice
The only games I know how to play
Why can't I ever mean what I say?

I was a victim
Of your addiction.
One of your numbers
It's too bad
You don't keep count.

I was one of your poisons
You used to try
to ****
All the slices and scars
All the sadness and pain

I was one of your mistakes
A strong one
That put bars over the door
Kept all the razors at bay.
Would never run away.

Yesterday you gave up
Addictions
Poisons
And
Mistakes

Today I gave up
You

It isn't your mystery
Or history
That makes me stick around.
It isn't because you pound
Away at me,
Or have the right key.
I stay
Because you just may
Be a habit, an addiction,
Just a whirl-twirl fiction,
greasy slab of meat,
***** spike on the bottom of my cleat.

Whatever you do
Don't fall in love
At a masquerade ball
He'll destroy you
Mask and all
Beauty you cling to
A high light reel
Of the second base steal
Will replay in your mind
Whatever you find
Make sure it isn't love
At a masquerade ball.

Flooded sharp things
My arm floating heavily
On your shoulders

I'm scouting ahead
I'm taking back all I gave
Here, I'll stave
This off
Starve
Burn
Barge through the door
Of your poor little house
That you took from a little piggy
I keep repeating,
Wolves take their share
Somehow, you don't care
And maybe there is nothing else to bare
Bones and skin
Misshapen breast and sloppy scars
I keep repeating,
Pay in love
I scouted ahead
It seems you never heard what I said.

Float on the surface
A little game
Print my name
when you like cursive
A crooked arrow
When you like straight
**** at this rate
Because I can't think
Of anything I'd prefer
Than being subject
To your allure
Replace
The blue model
With A nicer face
Slow
Scarcity

I am slippery,
caught, covered in blood,
mud, and bruises.
A fruit fallen from the branch,
turning sour and moldy on the ground,
not filling anyone's hunger.

I am putting needles in my infections
and affections:
a million filled balloons floating away
now a million shards of soft shrapnel.

I am picking up the wreckage:
my rotting flesh from the ground,
metal sound-- all skinny and gray
and my endless array of memories on re-play.

Whiskey glass perched

Bird in a cage

A puppet,
dying on stage.
Rage around town
Like him or her
Or them
Men scrape the side
And hide
behind cold eyes
And a whiskey glass
Perched.

Distracted by the heat
And
Electricity
From my eye
Lashes:
That's the only way
To touch you;
Because you are a candle flame
And
Scars don't mean the same
when they are made by you
And
past the fence
I thought it was greener
But
It reminds me of him,
Only meaner.

pretty fascinating mind
appearing light,
flecking dangerously close.
swallow
let go

But keep one pinky on the edge.
Walk the line easily
between fascinating
and ******* with words.

fighting whats left inside me
i am or am i
laughing,
throwing my voice,
cracking the night,
And another bite mark
finds

A scar
A humble star
A version here
A ******* there

the quiet hits,
as it will,
defeat in my bones,
Quickly it does distill.
Looking around the room
momentarily left insane,
fringed, frightened,
buried cold

long dark rings
tucked in the eyes
black circles where you've hid
those years
behind.
Defined in every happy ending
to an ever-ending ride
In my pretty fascinating mind.

Heavy silver hair
falls silently,
a razor slices away
the tiny slivers closest to your scalp.
Markers stencil
where he will saw
a report speaks
dry and clinical
of how it took you away.

Words escape me
A common problem
I see
In the folds
Of hands intertwined
There he holds
A gun to my forehead
And asks to have a normal conversation
Doesn't understand
Doesn't agree
How could it be
That words escape me?

I want to understand
Mechanics banned
From working right
Under a thumb, light
Strokes dark
Mark down another thing
Throw away another ring
Sing low another dirge
Die a little, emerge
From ashes
Another plan hashes
Another man dashes
Cashes in on my desperation
Precipation makes things grow
Throw away another ring
Notice, again, another ding
Mark down anther thing
On and on
All this greets every dawn.

Push away
Pull closer

Couldn't stay
Tried anyway

Unraveled pile
Of ***** yarn
Yearns and
Learns what it means to burn
And discern, finely,
The different flavors
Of pain

And create, kindly,
The eventual train
Of thought
Accept
What you've got

I'm always early
Like winter
And rain
And the moon
When all you want is sun.
Dad spun stories
Of how things are
Fleeting
So you might as well
Love and hate
At a similar rate
Not too much
Not too little
Just early enough
And somewhere in the middle.

Am I a fridge on the road side?
Am I a pair of red lips
folded like gift wrap
around your part?
Am I am an empty black coat?
You must understand --
I need to meet me.
Stop this destruction.
If you see me,
arrange an introduction.

An apple with an arrow through it
You didn't keep it, just threw it
At me. Sharp thorns overtake me.
I only wanted to show you my aim.
Tame the animal, curl flame
Around your finger
I would love to linger
Just a lifetime longer
But paper snowflakes are no stronger
Than this cheap plastic mask
I was never cut out for this task.

Keep a beat
Of urgency
While
Weeds grow in my seat.
So, I stand instead
Tapping my toe
In the space right below
The thin pile of ash
Watching me
Asking, "do you see
In me what he never saw in you?"

The dead wash ashore
over and over
I ask for more
mercy
but there lies war
instead of a wild flower
that was somehow there before
amid the grass and stream
a wild flower
grown in my dream

Climb the stairs slowly
Limb to bare, solely
In the lonely dead of night
I wish to fly with all my might
Sight confused with a candle flame
Hot and cold both hurt the same
You could **** me with a single silence
Absence is a sort of violence
you look for evidence
You develop reticence
How could anything last
When we are always a couple seconds in the past?

She met him in high school
there was a motorcycle
her pink shirt
Thirty
some-odd years
He has a divorce and a half
She has a tumor and a laugh
indicative of decline.
Three kids on the line
What's the price of a tickle to his parts?
Five hearts.

Throw my hood up
It's raining outside
And inside
Is a nothingness
Like my bedroom walls
Your words
Echoing
Maddening
Repeating
Defining
I swim toward the shore
But it moves away
So I drift and sway
Amongst the eels and beer cans
I talk to them like they understand
Out of the sky I demand
A satellite picture
Of how your hair might be
The image is good company
In a way they never are
Here and gone
Like a shooting star

I told her about what he did.

Because she doesn't know about my poetry

But you do. I think.
So where is your excuse for your surprise?
Oh, wait, here it is:
You don't read this.

I didn't look at her.

I just looked at the curled tissue in my sweaty palms.

Then she asked me what my sadness feels like.

It feels like I'm drowning,

but can see everyone else breathing.

What is making me drown?

All this weight

that I'm holding onto

thats holding onto me.

What is the heaviest thing forcing you to hold its hand?

Losing mom.

You mean the mom you never had in the first place?

Yeah, that one.

The one who was never in the crowd

when it was Mother's Day and the class was singing?

Yeah, that one.  

The one you remember searching for?

The one who you were never good enough for?

But at least she never said it like dad said it.

The one whose memory is one without you in it?

Her, doing something else:

Reading the paper on the couch,

Curling her hair,

Asking why I got a "B" and not an "A"

The one that saved you from

literally drowning at the community pool?

Yeah, that one.

How can you mourn the loss of someone you never had?

Easy, I do it every ******* day.

When will this end?

I can see the pin-***** of light ahead

the cement used to be wet sludge

and now it seems to have dried

up to my waist.

Electricity through wires
cold tracks, torn tires
back alley where you forgot me
cardboard boxes
quick brown foxes
accent on the "see"

I wait for navy
to melt into a pink gravy
maybe we forgot how to turn the key
unlock the door
get off the floor
of the back alley where you forgot me.

Dark velvet curtain
turned as course as sandpaper
Wrapped up like my life depends on it
white rubbed bones
Urgency is always what gets me
all the wax paper cones
crushed into triangles
Where will I put this
crushed-ice-sugar-slush now?
Unwrap this girl? You ask me how.
Reshape the cone and take a bow.

Bullets making lace.
Lotuses growing from mud.
Beauty needs ugly.

Red light blinking
Hopelessly thinking
This may never turn green
Of all his sayings mean,
Which did I love the most?
Sarcastically boast
I can't pick just one.
I set them free
Like helium balloons
I stare at the sun until I can't see
What it was you wanted me to be.

You are a bandit in the night
right on time
right when I have no fight.
Silhouette framed in the doorway,
make me pay
in lust and body:
ugly and shoddy.
Somehow I ask you,
"What does my mind taste like through
my blood-brain barrier?"

"Mud and pigeon feathers,
walking from the shadows
into the light,"
whispered the Bandit in the night.

Your silence
On waves distant
You float away

Too much is never enough
Hand on skin
Nails on sandpaper
Walk on the shadows
Or with the shadows
All I could muster

Fire feels like ice
Like lace
Like net
Like bars and chains
Can you hear me?
Scream louder
Gun powder

Out with a bang

Bathtub overflowing
Spilling
Spitting
Spinning
Giant vortexes
Consuming the bathroom
Where a single candle burns,
Where a single candle is put out.
Where the rubber ducky floats
But then sinks.
Nothing stays afloat forever.

She painted the bathroom lavender
The only part of that left
Is the glorious mistake she made
On the moulding.

I am scarred
Where I was trying
To be beautiful.

It turns out
maybe that is more cherished
In the end.

Does she know
about me

Whispers
And invisible pleas
Slither into the universe
Across the sea

Telling her
To hold you for me.

Mallet resembles
or reassembles
what it broke in the first place
face it: destroy and create
fate chose to put them both in my head
bed empty. Can't stand it any other way.
Say something to me I can't see right through
To you I'm just spicy trembles
brambles
is what it feels like to me.
Sea salt and vinegar
linger like all the things he said.
Bed empty. Can't stand it any other way.
Pay in love, I keep repeating
beating blood through brain and brawn
fawn over dreams that don't make sense
fence around my heart?
Try a million gunshots
lots of pain is all I see
pots of rain is what it feels like to me.

I wanted it to be us
Pulling away from the bottom
Of the deep end;
But smeared lipstick reminds me:
This is only temporary.  
They will only love you
As long as you are loveable
As long as you are good

I would have shook off
This dark veil
To see you more clearly

I would have loved
This world
In its chaos
Beautiful spirals in and out
Of madness
Of loneliness and beckoning
Over and over
A tolling bell.

Sometimes I wish dad
had hit me instead.
When he was mad
he threw words that led
to bruises unseen
beneath the skin
ripe and mean.
Just stick some sort of pin
and you'll see me bleed
if that is what you need
Because then at least I can watch that heal.

The sun kissed me yesterday,
I wonder if you'll mind
The traces of gold
It left behind.

I understand the world
Through a dark sea.
Barefoot, I walk
Through the shock
Of sting rays,
But all I feel is the sand
How it holds me up, helps me stand,
And run towards you.

I meet rough seas
Like a cool pool of oil
Sick and poisonous
Colliding, but not mixing
Holding the secret
To living without actually feeling.

Sitting here with me
I tear apart
Push together
Build and destroy
Pain and pleasure
Because I can't stand it either way

Chain me down
Cut it out
My mind is round
Try to make it square

To you
It's not fair

Imagine how salt and water
hydrogen and oxygen
ball and stick models
all the real things
create the intangible
obese sadness crowding out
skinny gems of budding joy
the moment I try to shed my skin
eyes cloudy
I can't see
straight anymore.

Baby birds hatch
Catch
On a feather to survive
Dive
Revive
Look around you're alone
Clone
Clones
Drones
Lined up for battle
Rattle on the end of a tail
Pale face
tracing veins
Reins tied around my neck
Peck
Peck
Pecking
There are bugs somewhere on the ground
Hounds howl
Vowel
The only one I remember is "i"
My tie has somehow killed me
See
that nest?
It's best
that's it's empty now.

You're alone sailing
Sea shimmers
Limbs flailing
Some things never change.
You climb the walls
Of a gun range
Bullets like words
Fly at you

Like birds

Flock dynamics
observe
straight line or curve
arrive anyway
Seems like the only way
of reaching out again.

Can you fight blade to blade?
Often not
As I drop it on my knee.
I watch the words fly out to sea
And all the things once within me
Have all fallen
Drifting now. Accompanying now
The pollen
Once within the rose.

Stop sign
Blink red and gone
Speed past. All in
The heat of a song
Balanced. Calling,
am I blind
Or is this good?
Stop sign
Is the mood.

Elegant fingers
I created from nothing
Or something
A stranger said to me
Long ago
Zip down the zipper
Look chipper
They say that's best
I'm not like the rest
Hardly worth the time
It takes to consider
If you'll stay
They say
The good thing is
The bad thing is
Everything is fleeting.
Everything is bliss.

Thrown out
Scrap
dumpster
hot blue
He doesn't want me
Lets see if you do
Last time I checked
The trash was filled with rats
a slice of bread thoroughly pecked
Torn baseball, broken bats
Pull a rag through the *****
Tap a hammer to nail
Iron out wrinkles, do whatever repair
Fix this machinery

It all feels black and blue to me.

The color of sadness
Is the blue of the room
Where I laying calling out to you

The weight of sadness
Is all of the ocean
Gathered in the sound of “no”

It is a harsh velvet rope
In tropical heat
Strangling slowly
Every fleeting joy

I have measured it all
In every way
Just so I could
Hold it there and say
“I will love you again”